62 WILD WINGS 



rookery. Starting from the southern end of the west coast, 

 probably somewhere on Whitewater Bay, he watched the 

 flight of the birds, formed a conclusion as to the exact 

 direction of their course, and plunged into the bewildering 

 maze of the mangrove swamp. Carrying a meagre outfit 

 and a light canoe, he slept among the mangrove roots where 

 night overtook him. From time to time he climbed a tree 

 and verified his course by that of the birds. Now and then 

 he utilized one of the muddy, brackish lakes, and secured 

 a few moments' rest, as he paddled across, from the worst 

 of the innumerable hordes of mosquitoes that there make 

 the life of man almost intolerable. 



How many days he was thus engaged is not known, but 

 at length, forcing his canoe through a narrow, overgrown 

 channel from one of these lakes, which seemed to lead to 

 some other body of water, he came out into a round, open 

 lake, a mile and a half across. Out in the middle of it he saw 

 a small island of about two acres, densely overgrown with 

 mangrove trees, whose dark foliage was almost hidden under 

 a canopy of snow-white birds, ibises, herons, and egrets, 

 with others of darker plumage. 



It must have been a beautiful and wonderful sight, a theme 

 for the artist, a vision for the poet. But our plume-hunter was 

 not that sort of a man ; the aesthetic side was lost upon him. 

 Making a closer investigation, he found that the island was 

 crowded by innumerable thousands of several kinds of birds, 

 some of them the species whose plumage would bring the 

 highest prices. There they were, the nesting-season at its 

 height, brooding their eggs and feeding their young. 



Did Cuthbert spread the joyful news among the Seminole 

 Indians, the widely scattered settlers, or the outlaws that are 

 in hiding in the swamps? Not at all. He pondered these 

 things in his own heart, with a mercenary intent. The snap 



